Posted
by
Soulskill
on Wednesday February 04, 2015 @12:30PM
from the talking-sense dept.

An anonymous reader writes: FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has published an op-ed explaining how and why the FCC will "use its Title II authority to implement and enforce open internet protections." He says, "These enforceable, bright-line rules will ban paid prioritization, and the blocking and throttling of lawful content and services. I propose to fully apply—for the first time ever—those bright-line rules to mobile broadband. My proposal assures the rights of internet users to go where they want, when they want, and the rights of innovators to introduce new products without asking anyone's permission. ... To preserve incentives for broadband operators to invest in their networks, my proposal will modernize Title II, tailoring it for the 21st century, in order to provide returns necessary to construct competitive networks. For example, there will be no rate regulation, no tariffs, no last-mile unbundling. Over the last 21 years, the wireless industry has invested almost $300 billion under similar rules, proving that modernized Title II regulation can encourage investment and competition."

Tom Wheeler is actually a human being, not a faceless bureaucratic mouthpiece for the cable industry. Who would have thought it? I like his story about almost being the huge success that made AOL an also-ran in internet history, but for a rule that made the telephone network open, and the cable network closed. That is why so many people experienced the early internet at 1200 baud or 2400 baud, rather than 1.5 megabaud. Wheeler's early failure due to an FCC reg made a lasting impression on him. Now he has a chance to fix the problem that tripped him up. While the devil is always in the details, I like the direction he says he is going in. Kudos.

In other words, they still won't require broadband providers to open up the public infrastructure to competing ISPs.

You'll still be stuck using their IPv4 protocol or Ethernet service, whichever they choose... and innovation in network technology from competing providers, or innovating with different networking technologies won't be possible like you can do with an unbundled loop and a competing carrier.

In other words, they still won't require broadband providers to open up the public infrastructure to competing ISPs.

You'll still be stuck using their IPv4 protocol or Ethernet service, whichever they choose... and innovation in network technology from competing providers, or innovating with different networking technologies won't be possible like you can do with an unbundled loop and a competing carrier.

Small steps. Writing letters to the FCC and your congressional representatives in support of these proposed regulations is the best way to encourage more pro-consumer internet legislation in the future. Internet openness isn't a big issue in American politics. That doesn't mean we can't make it one, but it takes time. In the last 10 years we have witnessed gay rights and marijuana decriminalization make HUGE advancements. They used to be fringe issues too, but now they are two of the hottest topics in politics. It wasn't a sprint, but a long marathon.

If it is public infrastructure the existing broadband companies won't have any control over it. Companies cannot open up a public resource.

The telephone network copper lines are considered public infrastructure, because the public helped pay for it both in the form of subsidies, and in the form of subscription fees generated through selling a service as a government-sponsored monopoly.

Fiber.... not so much. Although, the government did pay big telcos in the form of huge grants to build out fiber, they never did. They pocketed the money, essentially. Then went and built out new fiber-based networks, and those are not being regulated.

So the telcos stole an unfairly generous deal, and all the fiber laid by the incumbents really is and ought to be considered public infrastructure.

Tom Wheeler is actually a human being, not a faceless bureaucratic mouthpiece for the cable industry. Who would have thought it? I like his story about almost being the huge success that made AOL an also-ran in internet history, but for a rule that made the telephone network open, and the cable network closed. That is why so many people experienced the early internet at 1200 baud or 2400 baud, rather than 1.5 megabaud. Wheeler's early failure due to an FCC reg made a lasting impression on him. Now he has a chance to fix the problem that tripped him up. While the devil is always in the details, I like the direction he says he is going in. Kudos.

Giving the man Kudos on Slashdot is certainly not a bad thing, but if you want to encourage this kind of reasonable pro-consumer behavior, you need to write your comments to people that matter. I sent an email to Chairman Wheeler's account (tom.wheeler@fcc.gov) thanking him for his courage with my senate and house representatives on cc.

Maybe (probably) my email will come to nothing. But remember that all sorts of companies will be trying to defeat and bury his proposed regulations. Someone needs to make arguments contrary to the lobbyists, loudly and often.

"Mr. Wheeler’s plan would regulate mobile and fixed broadband providers under Title II of telecommunications law, the provision that applies to common carriers. The broadband industry has been strongly opposed to using Title II, arguing it would saddle companies with outdated regulations and depress investment in upgrading their networks."

Correct. He's not talking about applying these rules only to Mobile Broadband, he's differentiating this proposal from some of the FCC's earlier proposals, which would have exempted mobile internet, and only applied to landline service.

The broadband industry has been strongly opposed to using Title II, arguing it would saddle companies with outdated regulations and depress investment in upgrading their networks.

The irony here is that it was precisely the lack of Title II regulation which has allowed US cable companies (and mobile broadband) to pocket all that cash, rather than invest in better infrastructure to the extent the rest of the Western world has.

The result has been slower internet, for more money, than elsewhere.

No wonder they oppose it. It would mean much of their free lunch is over.

Don't underestimate how much the public outcry affected this. I am involved in politics, and have had discussions about this on the federal level. One thing I learned is that most leaders in congress only know what the people around them tell them. They don't have time to surf Slashdot and Reddit (and people wonder why I don't want to run for office), and for the most part don't understand technology. They are getting spoon fed industry lines from everyone around them, and rarely hear from ordinary people. So the protests and outcry got their attention, and they started asking questions. Many of them came to a much better understanding of the issue, and that's why you have seen the change.

It is so easy to be cynical these days, and this is probably the exception to the rule. Leaders of both parties are isolated in DC, and often aren't swayed. But they can be, and this is one case where they were.

Huh? Are you drinking your own kool-aid? How does ensuring that corporations don't prioritize Internet traffic (and unfairly disenfranchise startups and direct competitors) get the government more involved in your life? The FCC isn't regulating the content of the Internet, just how it's delivered.

No, that's step 2. There's always a step 1 with emotional appeal to create the regulatory power, so that that power can then be used for steps 2-N without further involvement from anyone elected.

Call me cynical, but we've seen this pattern so often with other country's mandated-at-the-ISP internet filers "for the children", followed after a while by "oops, how did all the political sites opposing the party in power end up in the porn filter, total mystery really". Over and over, country by country.

ISPs aren't a utility nor a natural monopoly. The last mile is a natural monopoly utility. Any plan that doesn't break off the "last mile" into a separate regulated utility company divorced from any content ownership or backhaul won't fix anything important. Further, it's obvious that it won't fix anything important, so I wonder at the real motive.

Yes, they did censor POTS. Wire fraud is a special law specifically to address POTS. There are similar for gambling and anything that may be illegal in any juridiction it gets terminated in. Also, threatening or harrasing phone calls and a do npt call list.

You are just wrong about this. It is about making all broadband carriers "common carriers" under Title II so that they must open their networks to competitors, and not favor their own services. So, Comcast can't throttle down packets from vonage, while passing their own voip signals just fine, or throttling down Netflix while providing their own video on demand service at a blazing speed. It pertains to mobile broadband, but it is not about wireless only. Where did you get that idea? If you read the article, you would see that the government is involved in your life anyway, like it or not. You should study game theory. It might clue you in why sometimes broadly applicable rules (aka laws) are necessary. Or do you think everyone would function perfectly fine without these crazy things called "laws"?

it gets the government ever more involved in your life, and in managing how you can or must communicate

FUD. Either our government does the managing, or the corporations do. The government, at least, is accountable to the ballot box and the press. Comcast and their ilk are not. And don't say anything about free enterprise and competition. Competition is for small fry and suckers. Once you reach the size of Comcast, it benefits shareholders more to merge and acquire than to compete. Once monopoly status is achieved, hell with consumers and employees alike.

I wouldn't get too excited. He's basically doing something that is going to involve years of fighting, during which nothing is going to happen. Politically it looks better for Obama, economically the telecoms don't want to upgrade or change things anyway, and maybe in a few years we forget that we want faster broadband (right).

It doesn't apply. If you pay closer attention to what he said, he's going to let them get by with so many things that this is effectively toothless.

Breaking bundling and separating content provider from data provider are a must if you actually want fair play.

All that'll happen now is that Comcast will manage their network equally. Low rates outside their network so Netflix sucks, but their cable service on the internal network will function most of the time. And of course you'll have to buy that and phon

It could have been easy to get along and keep doing what they were doing, but no, Verizon has to go and sue in court. They had to challenge the weaker rules, force Wheeler's hand and cause this to happen.

This isn't going to stop local cable monopolies, either. I have access to one gas utility, one electric utility, and one water utility. Where is my competition? The only place I actually have choices is internet/tv: cable or fiber or DSL(where I have dozens of options from DSL resellers).

Works beautifully here. The government put in a large fiber network reaching businesses and homes all over. They will run it to your house for a 2 year contract at a low fee ($30 for me. Fee is based on income)

The network is open to any ISP that wants to use it. Actual service is decided by the market- which is by nature of this network, now an actual free market with no bullshit laws and high bar entry costs. there are, as of right now, 12 providers on it. it started with 5. Their prices are low, none have ANY caps or limits, and customer service falls just shy of fellatio. Several provide TV over fiber as well, and I hear that service is also great, with much smaller and cheaper bundle tiers than Comcast has.

Because they have to actually compete with each other.

Note: Comcast was also invited to use it. They refused. They are hurting bad out here now, really only servicing the pockets that fiber has not reached yet. they pour millions every year in to ad campaigns to oppose the annual fiber expansion proposals. They get laughed at a lot.

It remains to be seen whether this is legally binding or not - just declaring an existing, established market to suddenly, over night be regulated under a title which has existed alongside that market for decades? That's ripe for a legal battle if I have ever seen one.

Seeing as it was the FCC who originally classified them as Enhanced Service Providers, (oh god I'm having flash backs to when 1/2 the people on this site thought ISP's were common carriers) I fail to see why it is now illegal for them to reclassify them.

Well, that can be a little ambiguous. For example, The Pirate Bay (yes we all know 99% is illegal content), it provides a service, that has legal uses, albeit very very small. So blocking a legal service with illegal content might not fly. The fact that TPB is not in the US might make things difficult, since as long as the service complies with requests to remove illegal content (even if they are slow about it), it is still technically complying with requirements of a legal service, and therefore should not be blocked.

I don't think that's a concern for this discussion. They're not making it any easier or more allowed for ISPs to mess with illegal content. The ISPs are already allowed to block illegal content, and will always be allowed to do that. The news here is that they aren't allowed to block or throttle anything else.

So yes, I would be concerned if they were talking about increasing the ability of ISPs to monitor and restrict questionable content, or if they were talking about expanding the definition of "unlaw

I fear that if the Right loses on this issue (and face it: siding with the most-hated corporations of a most-hated industry is awful retail politics), they have one arrow they will pull from their quiver.

If it is re/classified under Title II, the right will quickly insist there be bans on every type pornography (with a definition that will even encompass old National Geographics), hate speech (read: not approved by their paymasters), and of course: effective, non-backdoored encryption.

There's only one place in the article that specifically mentions mobile broadband. The rest talks about the internet and broadband in general.

Although it's not completely clear, I'm assuming Title II will apply to both mobile and non-mobile broadband, but he's calling out mobile broadband because the most ignominious examples of abuse (data caps, throttling, prioritization, etc) have been by mobile operators.

Question: Will Title II prevent mobile companies from charging different rates for different types of data? For instance, because I choose the lowest level, bare bones plan, Verizon currently charges me $0.20, or over $1300 per MB, which is pretty fucking ridiculous. No industry with any sort of legitimate competition would be able to charge people for that, when there's absolutely no justification for that sort of predatory pricing (other than to gouge their customers for lots of money).

The few dollars they charge for text messages in addition to my normal $60 bill is not the difference between profitability and non-profitability for Verizon. I'm not arguing that we should be charged only by bandwidth, but that SMS messages should not be treated separately than other data when being charged by the GB.

It's an unbelievable scam, and I'm not sure why we let them get away with it, to be honest. There's no justification for it other than "we can bilk people out of a significant amount of mone

The government actually did something people wanted, the president actually supported, and the FCC actually agreed with that a republican controlled house and senate couldn't shit on? Im shocked but I think i can shed a little light on what this regulation actually means for us Americans.

1. "Its Comcastic" can no longer be a punchline or an exclamation of furious rage
2. the libraries of congress will download at the same speed, but the ghost of Grover Cleveland will no longer be present to slow down the ASICS in the switch fabric.
3. healthcare.gov will now work for up to 9 simultaneous connections at speeds of up to 14.4kbps
4. Myspace's "Tom" will now attend funerals in person and apply blingies to the casket at no extra charge
5. The Supreme Court will now be given actual tubes of fresh, warm internet to help learn what it is. Clarence Thomas will now be rotated twice during his naps to prevent sores.

Now let's see if it actually happens. There's plenty of time yet for lobbyists and donors to flood the final process with blood money. The D.C. news (not talk) radio station WTOP already runs big biz shill organization ads carping about "innovation" and "serving our customers".

Of course, we'll also get a big dose of nonsensical Randian rhetoric about the Imaginary (oh, sorry, "Invisible") Hand of the marketplace, all.gov is teh evilz, etc.

So it remains to be seen if this is a real prelude to a long-overdue action or just a PR stance designed to quiet the lowing populist herd and get the money pumps running again.

Now let's see if it actually happens. There's plenty of time yet for lobbyists and donors to flood the final process with blood money.

They already have.. in the form of Tom Wheeler.

And since most people expect him to return to being one of those lobbyists... it seems highly unlikely he's actually going to do anything which imposes regulations on the industry he's a paid shill for. At least, not if those regulations don't have loopholes you could drive a bus through.

Indeed, they usually are in terms of editorial outlook, and noone can blame them for who buys airtime; it's their business, after all. It comes as no surprise, though, that Verizotimewarcomcast (their boards of directors are so incestuous they might as well be one company) can buy a lot more spots than, say, the EFF.

I would expect there's supposed to be a distinction between making content available from a server inside Comcast's network and having one site not in Comcast's network pay to get better traffic shaping than another site not in Comcast's network. If nothing else, "a server inside Comcast's network" is a rough description of any of Comcast's business customers. Of course, how it actually gets implemented (and how the little details of difference between netflix colo pods and business customers get handled) m

Bingo... this doesn't provide net neutrality unless providers are required to upgrade peering arrangements when services their customers request routinely saturate the connections. So a new service comes along and the big providers can simply de facto block/throttle it by refusing to upgrade the peering connection to the other network...

Logically, being closer isn't prioritization. If paying to have your servers closer is against the law, then the logical conclusion would be you have to make sure your servers are as far away from the customers as possible.

Wheeler is talking about applying these rules to MOBILE BROADBAND. That means Sprint and others are at a disadvantage compared to Comcast, who will benefit from the more intense regulation of their competitors.

Except it also makes it more likely we'll eventually have mobile-based broadband options that can be used to replace Comcast's cable internet service.

I've been following this rather passively, but all of this talk seems to only mention specific internet access methods: broadband and/or mobile broadband. However, we know there are a myriad of parallel methods, from satellite to dial-up. Unless all US Internet access is brought under Title II, the market will attempt to shift toward whichever methods are most exploitable for profit.

...but we already know that Comcast and Verizon are the Antichrist in corporate form. I am concerned about the details of the implementation but this *should* be a very positive thing for those who actually use the Internet instead of just acting as its tolltakers.

Don't want to rain on the parade, but I'm hoping someone more knowledgeable can chime in here: Isn't last mile unbundling the main thing we need? Doesn't this reduce competition? (the main thing that the FCC needs to artficially induce in the natural monopoly that is telecommunications?)

I'm really hoping these "modernizations" of Title II aren't just a "compromise" where the industry makes out better anyway.

What you're seeing is the typical conservative notion that deregulation promotes investment, which deliberately draws attention away from the fact that the reason the US broadband infrastructure leaves so much to be desired is not because of a lack of investment but because there is nothing enforceable in place which requires them to spend the money they already receive on the necessary upgrades. Government subsidies, your monthly rates; only the barest minimum of any of that goes toward upgrades which are deemed absolutely necessary, while the rest accounts for billions of dollars in profits.

Regarding last mile bundling, one of the arguments against it is that more competition would stifle innovation. That might hold water except that the only "innovation" these companies are investing in are new and better ways to curb your bandwidth consumption. Thankfully for the millions who simply have no choice of provider because of location, fiber has already been invented. Don't worry folks -- as soon as we guarantee that no competition is ever able to enter your area, your ISP will be at your door the next morning to run high speed fiber straight into your home!

People are getting confused because it appears to be a win for net neutrality on the surface. Really now, do you think a former telecoms lobbyist would put that on the table if service providers didn't have something to gain from it? It's simply being used as a bargaining chip here to win people over into supporting the very reason our infrastructure is a global embarrassment. A decade from now, when you are paying $120/mo for 10down/1.5up Super Premium High-Speed Internet Turbo Boost Plus, they'll expect you to smile and be happy with your "open internet." To remind those with poor short-term memories, deregulation is what led to the whole Comcast BitTorrent debacle in the late 2000s; what a great win for net neutrality that turned out to be.

Rest assured that "no rate regulation, no tariffs, no last-mile unbundling" will only benefit the bottom line of service providers. This is a compromise, one that wants you to accept long-term mediocrity for a temporary victory. How satisfied will you be when there's nothing left but the good graces of monopolistic corporations to stop your rates from skyrocketing and nowhere else to turn when they finally do?

"People are getting confused because it appears to be a win for net neutrality on the surface. Really now, do you think a former telecoms lobbyist would put that on the table if service providers didn't have something to gain from it?"

I'm pretty sure, unless this is some ultra-elaborate ruse, that the major Telecoms are not going to waste money trying to fight this in the courts if they ultimately ended up benefiting from it. One of the things the telecoms hated about Title II regulations when it came to the telephone system is that they were REQUIRED to provide telephone service equally without cherry-picking the high profit areas of the nation.

I promise you they do not want to be forced to deliver high speed broadband to these same rural areas because it will absolutely kill their profits.

So I've got this suspicious feeling that there's some devil in the details that is gonna be a major drawback to this. Anyone got any insight into some key word or tricky phrase that might indicate an ulterior motive?

He didn't address peering at all, so it's possible that Comcast/VZ/ATT could still bottleneck their peering links to Google/Netflix/Amazon to reduce the amount of bandwidth their customers have access to without doing anything in 'the last mile'.

This week, I will circulate to the members of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposed new rules to preserve the internet as an open platform for innovation and free expression.

Keep your fingers crossed:

Originally, I believed that the FCC could assure internet openness through a determination of “commercial reasonableness” under Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. While a recent court decision seemed to draw a roadmap for using this approach, I became concerned that this relatively new concept might, down the road, be interpreted to mean what is reasonable for commercial interests, not consumers.
That is why I am proposing that the FCC use its Title II authority to implement and enforce open internet protections.
Using this authority, I am submitting to my colleagues the strongest open internet protections ever proposed by the FCC. These enforceable, bright-line rules will ban paid prioritization, and the blocking and throttling of lawful content and services. I propose to fully apply—for the first time ever—those bright-line rules to mobile broadband. My proposal assures the rights of internet users to go where they want, when they want, and the rights of innovators to introduce new products without asking anyone’s permission.

Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. Local loop unbundling is what enables competition between telecom companies.

I mean, ok, this is a step in the right direction, but without the requirement that local carriers must lease lines I'm not so sure this does a whole lot. I imagine if this goes through then some carrier will bring them to court over Title I of Telecommunications Act of 1996, wouldn't they? It's clear to me the competition the chairmen is talking about is new online sites like NetFlix or T

No last mile unbundling! That's the core issue. That's what causes this nonsense is no real competition in the marketplace! This means you still have to deal with shitty companies like Comcast and Verizon because in many cases you have no other choice. It's a broken market. They should have forced last mile competition that would not only solve the net neutrality issue it would have lowered cost and increased speed and access.

I feel like he's really saying well look ISPs looks like our swindle is not going to fly with the icky proles but at least I will protect your duopolies so be thankful for that.

If only I had mod points. This is exactly my concern. It's as if they're dangling NN in front of us while slipping the rug out from under our feet.

From what I understand, the main problem is that we need to force the industry, kicking and screaming, to compete by "artificial" means because there is no naturally occuring free market (or anything close to it) in telecommunications. This is why the libertarian view of "if we only did away with franchise agreements granting territorial exclusivity..." wouldn't solve the main problem.

That's the core issue for telecom competition. For physical net neutrality. This is for logical net neutrality. To keep Comcast from charging you extra for access to NetFlix, and to then turn around and charge NetFlix extra for access to you. It's a first step. Politics is a slow process.

The problem is lack of competition. Title II does nothing to address the underlying problem. It only mask symptoms making it more difficult to gain consensus necessary to correct problem of monopolization of the last mile.

What are the downsides? Should we now expect USF line items on our bills? Do mom-and-pop operations have to deal with new red tape disproportionately favoring larger organizations? Will it be leveraged to provide cover for "information sharing" regimes affording customers no legal recourse?

How will Title-II prevent underhanded techniques to maximize leverage such as Comcast intentionally keeping links saturated? There must be an endless stream of "creative" ways to circumvent intent of net neutrality under other plausibly legitimate banners.

Whenever I find myself rooting for government to step in and fix a problem it makes me nervous. For all I know it may end up being better for everyone but I sure as heck wouldn't bet on it either way.

Bingo. Bitorrent is not and never has been illegal. What people put on it might be but the protocol is not. Just like someone hacking into the white house does not make my computer an illegal device due to it having the ability to do something illegal.

Would I have preferred corporate America came to that decision on their own? Sure! And I'll take a unicorn, as long as you have enough for everyone.

Keep in mind, before you go whining about those more fiscally responsible than yourself, that that the very abuses that net neutrality address exist because of government interference - Giving the telecoms local monopoly powers, limited right of eminent domain (an outright abomination in any context), and in many states, flatly banning public competition even in towns (like my own) that won't see cable or DSL until the next infernal ice age because the telecoms have zero interest in serving the "last mile". Not to mention that whole "incorporation" bullshit in the first place.

Rant on, though! Never let facts stand in the way of demonizing your political enemies.

I don't see anything he made a declaration of addressing any real problem that exists, at least not any wide scale or high public problem. For example, the Netflix/Comcast or Netflix/Verizon spat that seems to be the darling child of why net neutrality is needed. In order for regulation to address that problem they would need to either prohibit direct connection between networks, which essentially breaks the Internet without highly nuanced rules on top of only preventing the direct connect arrangement betwe

Cheap, reliable, and sustainable telecommunications networks & services exist under virtually all regulatory environments imaginable from one end of the spectrum to the other. We can make any of them work as long as we aren't beholden to the few entities that stand in the way, which is essentially the current arrangement the pervades the US industry.

Apparently the opportunity to turn any and all workable solutions into an ideological shit show is more important than functioning government and quality

I'm a little confused. You've recognized that the free market wouldn't have come to this conclusion on their own, implying that government intervention was necessary. But then you condemn the government for bowing to free market demands for things like local monopoly powers, banning public competition, etc? So you'd prefer that local governments boycott big business until they cow to the demands of Small Town USA, and deprive their residents of access to what is arguably a modern necessity?

I don't think you're libertarian, even if you identify yourself as such.

Government regulation can be both bad and good. You know this. You've pointed this out in the very post I'm replying to. There are situations that deal with the public good and interest where government has to step in. There are situations where government should sit the fuck out. In this situation, even you recognize the government has to regulate. You've also recognized that the government shouldn't have regulated local communications

The current mess is mostly due to local government (municipalities) imposed monopolies

No, the current mess is mostly due to the fact that we've been treating the Internet like a private entertainment service rather than public telecommunication infrastructure. You're never going to get real "free market" competition out of infrastructure. By its nature, public infrastructure needs to be treated as... well, public infrastructure.

I don't have a problem with a private contractor being used to actually build and maintain the road. I would be very uneasy allowing the private company to then "own" vital sections of road and charging whatever tolls they like. It would be so much worse if they could block some vehicles, charge different tolls for different vehicles, and set different speed limits for different vehicles, without even needing to provide a reason or rationale.

So imagine that I own a company called "Road America Inc." and we own the roads going in and out of your town. Imagine I'm allowed to say, "Tolls for Ford cars are $1, and Ford cars can go 70 MPH. Tolls for Dodge are $20, and Dodge cars have a speed limit of 35 MPH." You see, I'm not owned by Ford, but I've made a deal with Ford where I get a payoff to promote their brand.

I do, however, own some of the grocery stores in your town, and I'm charging very high tolls on any vehicles that carry groceries. Somehow, all of my grocery stores have cheaper goods. Maybe it's because I use the tolls on groceries to fund those grocery stores. I've outright blocked any incoming shipments of electronics, so my electronics stores are doing very well.

A.) Incompetent government regulation causing some inconveniences and waste.

B.) A corporate boardroom full of sociopaths telling me what I can and can't do with an "unlimited" network connection that I require to do my job.

Option A is the lesser of two evils. Internet service is no longer a "luxury", it's basically required to do business and even attend public school now. It's a utility and needs to be regulated like one to keep those greedy bastards from gouging us, killing innovation and hampering network performance for profit.

As screwed up and brutal as our government is, and as much as I think regime change is necessary..... I trust Verizon and AT&T even less.

The old monopoly (AEP/Columbia Gas) is in charge of maintaining the physical infrastructure, but I can buy the actual electrons/gas from anyone who wants to provide them. Sounds like exactly what we need in terms of infrastructure. The old monopoly handles the wiring, but anyone can provide services over the wires.